The Aspetuck River in Fair­field County,

Con­necti­cut, is glassy and calm as it me­an­ders through Suni Mun­shani’s 13-acre prop­erty. For­merly the care­taker’s cot­tage, the 1935 house was in dis­re­pair when Suni bought the farm in Oc­to­ber 2014. Over­grown trees dark­ened the home’s in­te­rior, and its pine pan­el­ing was sooty and brit­tle. “Brick­pat­tern con­tact pa­per cov­ered the floors. Ev­ery­thing was out of plumb. The kitchen cup­boards listed,” de­signer Kelly Mit­tle­man says with a small laugh, as she’s the one who item­ized the cot­tage’s many faults when she first saw it in early 2015. But Suni was de­ter­mined to re­store and im­prove it: “I liked what I saw, and part of the mo­ti­va­tion was its charm,” he says.

Mit­tle­man ap­pre­ci­ated the cot­tage’s po­ten­tial, too, and set about up­dat­ing the spa­ces in­side. To make its 1,600 square feet feel lighter and brighter, she ex­panded win­dow open­ings, re­moved a wall be­tween the sun­room and liv­ing room to let light flood in, raised head­ers above door­ways, and el­e­vated ceil­ings in the bed­rooms into at­tic space. She added shiplap in the kitchen and faux­bat­ten pan­el­ing in the bed­rooms, then painted all of it a soft white. “In a lit­tle jewel box like this, the ex­tra de­tails are fun. I wanted to cre­ate in­ter­est on the walls,” she says. “And white uni­fies sur­faces and keeps the rooms feel­ing fresh and clean.”

Orig­i­nal fea­tures got a spiff­ing up: The river rock fire­place was cleaned and re­paired. Mit­tle­man bright­ened the liv­ing room’s paneled ceil­ing with a pick­led fin­ish, and sanded and re­var­nished the grubby boards on the walls. “The pine pan­el­ing was not awe­some, but it is a pe­riod adorn­ment. Now the knots add fla­vor, and it’s a nice coun­ter­point to the mod­ern changes we made,” she says.

“I had no pre­con­ceived no­tions I would be lucky enough to ac­quire this prop­erty,” Suni says. “With the river go­ing through, it’s quite charm­ing and ex­cit­ing.” Wish­bone-style chairs around a glass-top wal­nut ta­ble join vivid paint­ings by artists Nina Mera and Alex Itin (in hall­way). Mit­tle­man used clean-lined, con­tem­po­rary fur­nish­ings to off­set the quaint ar­chi­tec­ture.